


shadows

by Ffwydriad



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast backstory, Drabble, Gen, and by my bullshit i mean:, and caleb widogast angst, i'm back on my bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22726648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ffwydriad/pseuds/Ffwydriad
Summary: caleb, resonant echoes, and the people who we might have been
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	shadows

He summons the shadow, to stand before him, to make the journey with them through the woods to face the hag. 

It is not the first time he has summoned the shadow. But it is the longest that it has remained with him, as they walk through the thick woods. Out here, in the wild, it doesn’t just look like darkness, it looks like a hole in the world, where an artist has erased the thick colors of the areas around him. 

It isn’t entirely clear, whether the shadow follows his orders, or if the reason it does what he asks is because it is him, and it knows what to do. It isn’t entirely clear to him, how much it is a being, how much it has an awareness and a mind, and how much it is just a shadow, just an echo, just a hole. 

He would think it just another tool - he had thought it just another tool, a hand to move, a cat whose form to borrow - but when the fading sunlight catches it right, he can see its eyes.

The eyes stare back at him, and there is something there, something that stares through him more sharply than even Caduceus with his clear sight can. 

Alternate timelines, diverging paths. How far back, is this version of himself from? Is it from a momentary decision, the person who he would be if he’d chosen a different set of spells, or is he from further back?

Did this version of himself split off from before he joined the Mighty Nein? From before he broke, before he set himself on the path to breaking? Does this shadow know what he has done, did he do it too? Does he think of this version of reality as a traitor’s path, of a broken man, would he approve of the goal that floats ahead, so close and yet still so out of reach?

Would the next? The one after that? How many copies of himself would he summon, before stumbling on one who didn’t make that choice, who cannot act so consumed by the disgust for the way this world played out. How long before he summons a copy that did as he, but never broke, who stands firm with labyrinth arms and will not act against the people who he once, perhaps, could have served?

Would they, could they turn? It wasn’t mentioned, but he wonders, if the versions that the Kryn mages summon would ever have the reason to hate the person that they had become, like he does. 

Or maybe they’re just shadows, and the flicker he sees in their dark eyes is only him. 

It still casts fireball, in the end, but if it would have flinched, seeing those burnt out undead bodies, that’s something he can never know. The spell slips, the fire fades, and his shadow is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> there is no possible place where i can't shove some caleb angst. also, thinking about the implications of /summoning alternate versions of yourself/ is pretty fun. 
> 
> i'm @malaismere on tumblr


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